Herbs have been usually used as a whole plant for medical application for so many years. Herbs were typically ingested as an infusion or tea, or were applied externally as a poultice. It had been found, however, that there was significant variance in the medical effect among individuals of herbs of the same species, when the herbs were treated by the same way.
The ingredients of an herb were typically a mixture of many chemical compounds, and some of the chemical compounds might be biologically active and have a therapeutic effect on human and animals. The ingredients of an herb may vary in their compound species and/or the relative amount thereof, depending upon the genetic information of the individuals of the herb and the natural conditions when the herb grows, such as the geographic region for cultivation, soil composition, water quality, weather conditions including temperature and humidity, sunshine intensity, and growth period.
The effect of herbs for medical application to human and animals was dependent upon the presence of several active compounds and their relative amount contained in the herbs. The higher amount of the active compounds is present in an herb individual, the herb individual may exhibit a higher therapeutic effect. There was no scientific guideline to detecting the presence of desired, active ingredients in an herb and their relative amount, even when the herb had been known to have a specific therapeutic function. The quality of an herb individual having been known to have a therapeutic effect on human and animals was conventionally judged based on just the skilled people's experience in observing its body shape and color, in smelling its flavor and/or via chewing its tissue. There was no teaching in the art to ascertain by a scientific way the quality (i.e. the presence of desired, active ingredients and/or their relative amount) of herbs having a therapeutic effect on human and animals.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,156,291 disclosed a method of reproducibly extracting a pharmacologically active mixture of chemical components from a plant source, wherein there was an improved quality control of the mixtures of pharmacologically active components.
For ascertaining the quality of herb individuals for a specific medical application, the first demand in the art is to develop a scientific method for detecting and ascertaining the presence of active ingredients in the herb individuals, whereby those herb individuals having said active ingredients and in turn a desired, therapeutic effect could be screened, while other herb individuals, even including the herb individuals of the same species, which do not have said active ingredients, could be eliminated for use.